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bizaar · 1 year ago

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Cruel Summer Part 12

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pairings: Eddie Munson x fem!reader

summary: After breaking up, you and Eddie do your best to soldier on with your lives, but you slowly begin to discover that there is a stronger line of connection keeping you together than just history…

word count: 11k

warnings: swearing, horror adjacent descriptors, angst, super saccharine fluff

In a less than shocking turn of events, you’d ended up running from the cops because, at the end of the day, that is really the only possible way the clusterfuck of the interrogation in the Wheeler’s living room could have ended.

And that’s not even the strangest thing that’s happened in the last hour, because Eddie and the others are trapped behind Watergate and in dire need of rescue… whatever that means.

You’d discovered as much by speaking to them… through a Light Brite of all things.

Your patience for this scenario was very swiftly growing thin before that happened, when all you’d had to try and wrap your head around was the fact that they were calling for your help via Morse code through a flickering light … because that makes sense.

Worst still is how you couldn’t even dismiss that one as a fluke, considering you were the one to notice it.

You truly cannot wait for the world to start making sense again, and you have a sinking suspicion that you’re going to have to wait a very long time for that to happen.

The Hawkins PD had spectacularly lost control of the room after the not-so-secret information of your relationship with Roane County’s Most Wanted came to light – no thanks at all to Erica, who has never been your biggest fan in the first place, so, really, you have to ask yourself why you’re even shocked that she would take the first chance presented to throw you under the bus.

In an effort to try and reign things back in, they’d decided to start one-on-one questioning, making the very poor decision, to begin with Max, which was likely to end the interviewing process before it even began.

You wondered idly if they realized the gravity of their mistake as they led her into the other room and shut the door behind them.

Thankfully, the spotlight gradually faded from you as the room dispersed into a plethora of individual huddles to discuss other things of evident import.

Suddenly it was like you weren’t even there, the closest thing to a status quo you have experienced since your parents moved away. It used to be a point of significant grief to you, moving through the world largely unseen and unheard by the people around you.

In your youth, it had always been your fondest wish to be the kind of person who lit up a room when you entered, you wanted to turn heads and have people look at you the way Dustin did, like you hung the moon.

The closest you ever came to skirting that dream was the brief interval in High School when you were still attached to Carol Perkins, who put you into the proximity of the likes of Steve Harrington back when he was still King of Hawkins High.

You were never promoted to anything more than serving as Carol’s shadow, an unwanted tag-along who people didn’t miss if you weren’t there.

It was one of the things that had made it so incandescently easy to slip unnoticed out of your put-together world and into Eddie’s, but here and now, you’ve never been more thankful to be ignored in your life.

You’d almost even managed to steal away before Claudia Henderson caught you in the doorway, beside herself and blubbering, as is her natural state. She had a hundred and one questions for you, none of which she could properly vocalize as she dabbed at her nose with a crumpled tissue and went on and on about the state of her poor nerves.

Because you’ve never been the type of person to be unkind, particularly to someone who has been nothing but good to you, considering the circumstances, you did your best to assure her that things were not as dire as they seemed.

You told her that there was a completely rational explanation to all of this (though you failed to provide one) that you would rather cut off your own arm than even think about putting Dustin in danger, and yes you promise you are still coming to dinner next Wednesday like you always do.

Every word of it was true, save for the last part, of course, considering you’re supposed to be halfway to Timbuktu with Eddie by next Wednesday.

How you’re going to manage that with no car, no money, and now no Eddie, you have no earthly idea. It strikes you with a miserable pang that suddenly you’re back at square one, no better off than you had been two days back, trudging up Kerley Street with Wayne’s money in your pocket and wondering just how in the hell you expected to conquer this Sysiphean hurdle.

On a hope and a prayer, you suppose, though now you can’t even afford to skirt by on that considering the money had been stuffed into the pocket of the jacket you’d been liberated from in your struggle to be free of Jason and his toadies.

It was your favorite jacket, and you wonder miserably what’s become of it.

Life is a bitch and then you die, and that’s just the way of the world.

This is a right mess, innit, Edward?

Suddenly, as if answering the inane question of your inner dialogue, there came a subtle flickering of the overhead lamp in the foyer. The pulsing of the light was a violent thing, a sickly orange glow stabbing you in the eye and demanding your attention.

Claudia Henderson was still sniffling in front of you, and if only for good manner’s sake, you tried to ignore it, but the blinking light was absolutely incessant. Try as you might, you could not stop looking at the damn thing.

It was so pervasive that you’d ultimately had to excuse yourself from the room to casually go and investigate what you imagined could only be a failing lightbulb.

You assume that you must have looked completely insane, standing beneath the lamp, glaring up at it and willing it to shut the fuck up, but perhaps more insane was just how familiar its nagging was.

You couldn’t help but feel that you’d summoned it somehow, particularly so when you realized how bizarrely reminiscent the flashing bulb was of the way Eddie used to subtly prod you for your attention during the brief, ill-advised quarter you’d been seated next to him in eleventh-grade History class.

You hadn’t learned a damn thing in those few short months, nothing except that Eddie inexplicably knows the tiniest bit of Morse Code and will drum out call signs onto your leg when he’s bored.

Most commonly, it would be the same pitiful cry for help when Mrs. O’Donnell’s pedantic lessons about the Napoleonic wars became too much: dot dot dot - dash dash dash - dot dot dot…

You tried to tell yourself that it wasn’t the exact sequence the light was flashing in, but the longer you stood and stared, the less you believed that.

dot dot dot - dash dash dash - dot dot dot…

Suddenly, you had a sneaking suspicion. A notion you knew could hold no water, but if it was even remotely possible how could you live with yourself if you ignored it?

dot dot dot - dash dash dash - dot dot dot…

You glanced carefully over your shoulder, making absolutely sure that no one was around to see, that no one would witness what you were about to do.

You knew you would have no way to explain it if someone asked, but you also knew you had to try.

You turned your face up to the light and spoke to it in an almost inaudible whisper.

“...Eddie?”

The light flared so brightly then that it left spots of color blooming across your vision, evidently answering you as the blinking became that much more incessant.

dotdotdotdashdashdashdotdotdotdotdotdotdashdashdashdotdotdotdotdotdotdashdashdashdotdotdot!

You gasped without really meaning to, clapping your hands over your mouth a moment too late in an attempt to muffle the sound. You stared at the light until the flashing colors completely overtook your vision and the pulsing was all you could see, then you blindly began twisting in manic circles, looking this time for someone, anyone to come and see what you were seeing.

No, not just anyone. Dustin. You needed Dustin to see what you were seeing.

You found him standing around the kitchen island huddled in tense conversation with the Sinclairs. You didn’t greet them as you made a beeline for the teen boy. He didn’t have the time to even finish saying your name before you seized him by the elbow and wrenched him back out into the foyer.

“Come look at this–” You’d hissed, dragging him into the next room with Lucas and Erica quickly tailing behind.

You directed their attention to the lamp with a sharp jab of your finger and leveled Dustin with a tense look.

“Am I crazy, or is that light speaking in Morse code?”

Despite being thoroughly convinced it was Eddie somehow making that light flash from wherever he was, some tiny rational part of your brain still hoped that maybe Dustin would discount the flickering lamp as nothing more than a latent concussion from Jason Carver’s special brand of chivalry.

You had to be crazy, right? Because lights don’t speak… right?

Still, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing any of you had ever heard that week, and as outlandish as it seemed, if there was even the slightest chance that it was Eddie calling for help, you couldn’t in good conscience ignore that, so you all sat and very carefully counted it out.

Dot dot dot – dash dash dash - Dot. Dot. Motherfucking dot – blinking as clear as day, assaulting your senses just like the silly little rubber love taps of Eddie’s pencil against the meat of your thigh in Mrs. O’Donnell’s class.

… S.O.S. …

You don’t know how he was doing it, you don’t even really care, you only know that if he put his mind to it, and was extremely fucking determined, he would find a way to make that light flash, to invade your space and make you understand in no uncertain terms that he needed your help.

Then came the nonsense with Holly’s Lite Bright, which you had little hope of following as Dustin shouted questions into the ether and the screen lit up with vague swirling answers and symbols.

You were right. It was Eddie. That much was evidently clear, and you still don’t exactly know how to feel about it.

Much less clear was the message being passed through to you, how the others had passed through the thing Dustin was calling Watergate and had been cut off.

Now they needed a Plan B, an alternate method to find their way back.

How Dustin gleaned all that information from a few dozen flashing bulbs is beyond you, though you suppose now it’s no different than how you’d decided in the first place that it was Eddie calling for help through more or less the same means. Still, it left you feeling like the odd man out, like there was some kind of vital prerequisite knowledge you were missing, as it was apparently not all that confusing to everyone else, frustratingly so.

Lucas, Erica, and even Max, who had been absent during the entire lamp episode, processed the information about so-called gates and seemed to understand immediately what needed to be done.

To them it was simple: the others were trapped. They needed another gate, and they knew exactly where they needed to go to find it.

No one apparently seemed to think it was important to explain to you what any of that meant.

They just kept repeating those same basic phrases and ushering you around with varying degrees of annoyance, as if you were completely on board with what needed to be done next and were just being willfully obtuse about the whole thing.

The next thing you knew, you were perched on the back of Dustin’s bike while he peddled like a madman, the shouting voices of the parents at your back, imploring you to stop and growing quieter every second.

You swallowed any anxiety you felt about the impending doom that awaited you and armed with a plan you still weren’t exactly clear on, you made the speedy escape across town.

It didn’t take long for you to realize where you were headed. After all this time, you could have made the journey in your sleep: the Forest Hills trailer park.

And here you find yourself back at the Munson trailer, which is probably the last place you’d expected to go in search of whatever gate it is Dustin keeps going on about.

It’s a welcome sight, as always. Even under the circumstances, seeing the dingy tin siding and mismatched patio furniture feels more like coming home than your own home does.

You can’t help but feel a pang of strident relief to see that not only is the police presence gone, but someone thought to shut the front door.

You wouldn’t outright admit it, because you knew it was highly implausible, but once you’d realized your destination you’d spent the duration of the ride trying to wrestle down the irrational fear that somehow Chrissy’s body would still be lying there in the doorway like it had been the last time you were here.

You knew rationally that it wouldn’t, cops don’t leave bodies lying around at crime scenes, but if you’ve learned anything from the past few days, it’s that you can’t depend upon rationality to prevail in this world.

Not anymore.

The lights are on, though as you file up the steps behind the others like a gaggle of good little ducklings, you tell yourself that doesn’t expressly mean anyone is home.

Dustin barges in, and you have to bite the inside of your mouth to stop yourself from telling him to knock as you cross the threshold and try to take some semblance of comfort in the cloying familiarity of the place. It’s difficult to do with no one home.

No Wayne sitting in his chair watching his shows through the snowy static of the rabbit-eared television.

No Eddie, shut away in his room with manic melodies rattling the door on its frame.

You survey the room without really meaning to, turning in a slow circle to take stock of everything – all of Wayne’s knickknacks and keepsakes remain in their rightful place, thankfully spared from evidence impound.

With all the lights on, the room is bathed in that same amber glow that always comes in the evening, giving the place a cozy feeling, but you can’t help but suppress a shiver at how empty it all feels.

How devoid of life.

It strikes you with a sudden and potent spike of anxiety that you don’t know what has become of Wayne. Standing there in the living room, you can see every inch of the trailer, save for the bathroom tucked away down the hall and Eddie’s bedroom, the door of which stands ajar.

When is a door not a door?

You resist the urge to go looking for him, knowing full well that if he were here, tucked away somewhere, the commotion of your arrival would have brought him out to investigate.

You suddenly find yourself hoping beyond hope that, for lack of knowing what else to do and unwilling to just sit on his hands waiting for some kind of news – good or bad – Wayne simply went to work.

You know what he would say.

"Rent's due when it’s due. Rain or shine, bills gotta be paid. The world don’t stop for nobody, no matter what. Better to stay busy."

It makes you sick to think of him worrying about Eddie with no hope of impending relief. How lonely it must be, working the factory floor, pretending everything is as it should be, meanwhile his nephew is in the wind?

Still, it’s a better thing to consider than the alternative, that his coming to your rescue landed him in trouble and he’s not at the plant, but sitting in a cell at the Police Station.

You won’t let yourself consider that notion, if only because you don’t know what you would do if that were the case.

You barely have time to consider the possibility of how you might intend to bail him out were that the case, as you finish your turn about the room and find your attention is yet again demanded by something in the ceiling.

This time it is not something so banal as a flickering light — you’d never get that lucky twice.

You noticed a lot of things that didn’t expressly belong when you’d stepped through the door of the trailer, stray lines of abandoned police tape floating in the breeze outside, chalky black debris of fingerprinting powder smeared across almost every flat surface in the room, but what you hadn’t noticed, was the angry red sore in the ceiling, throbbing and pulsing and glaring back at you like the Eye of Sauron set atop its perch at the fortress of Barad-dûr.

That seems… wrong.

For a moment it’s all any of you can do but stare at it.

“What the hell is that?” Erica asks, voicing the sentiment everyone must surely be feeling and doing her best to sound tough despite the way you can feel her inching to move behind you in an attempt to hide from the thing.

You let her do it without so much as a sideways glance, despite how you’re still pissed at her.

“The gate.” Dustin says solemnly, “The one Vecna used Chrissy to open.”

The information causes your heart to seize with terror. All this talk of gates, of this elusive one and of the gate the other half of your party had gone in search of at the bottom of Lover’s Lake, you never thought this is what would be waiting for you.

A fleshy open sore growing out of the drywall like an ulcer.

You don’t know what you’d been picturing this whole time, but it certainly hadn’t been that … and Vecna had used Chrissy to open it…

The notion causes a violent shudder to rip through your body. You still don’t know how you feel about this whole Vecna nonsense, but you’d seen what happened to Chrissy by way of Patrick’s demise.

It’s still close enough to send your heart skipping a few beats faster, just the one time had been enough to damn near ruin you, but Eddie had had to see it twice…

Oh, Eddie… You think, briefly submitting to the despair of it, My poor, sweet Eddie…

You swallow the feeling and your silent wish that he was here, standing by your side and sharing the horror of it all. You wish he was here, but you’re glad he isn’t, because for as bad as the brief sojourn to the Wheeler’s house had been, it would have been decidedly worse with him present.

Still, if this thing really is the gate where you were meant to meet the rest of your party, then where are they? What are you meant to do now that you’ve found it?

You feel your stomach tighten with worry, standing in the trailer and wondering not for the first time that week where the hell Eddie could possibly be, hoping to God the answer doesn’t lie within that … thing.

You’re vaguely aware of a conversation occurring around you, Lucas says something to your left, and Dustin answers to your right. You don’t acknowledge them, however.

You’re too busy looking at the fleshy, pulsating sore in the ceiling, trying to quantify how something like that could come to exist in the real world, outside of all the horror movies and urban legends and your worst nightmares.

You’re so busy staring up at it, half afraid that if you take your eyes off of it, it’s going to move and snatch one of you up into its capacious maw like it’s the goddamn Blob or something worse, that you don’t notice when your charges come to a decision or see when Dustin retreats to the hall closet to retrieve the broom.

You don’t see him come trotting back into the room brandishing it like the spear he intends to use it as, and you don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.

Suddenly, he’s standing directly below the thing, prodding at it experimentally with the long wooden handle.

Your heart leaps up into your throat, and before you can even open your mouth to protest such an obviously suicidal action, he thrusts up with as much force as he can muster and the broom pierces the fleshy veil with a sickening snap.

You watch in horror as the thing tears open … inwardly, which is highly disturbing, and you scream, as is the only natural way to react to something like that.

Thankfully the sound is more or less masked by the harmonized screaming of the frightened teenagers around you.

Worst still is the way the noise echoes back at you as a group of disembodied voices answers, screaming from the other side of the gate, if that's what it actually is – it is yet another highly disturbing development that sends the lot of you scrambling backward, tripping over the odd piece of furniture – and each other– as you go.

Max, Lucas, and Erica converge around you in a tight huddle – you can feel three sets of nervous hands fisting at your clothes and suddenly it’s like you’re all little kids again. Normally you would have made a mental note to tease them about it later, Erica, especially after such a violent betrayal at the Wheeler’s, but you’re too gripped in your own terror to even consider it, let alone realize that Dustin is not among your little fear huddle.

He’s still standing fixed to his spot below the thing, looking directly up into the gaping maw of the hole in Eddie’s ceiling.

For a very long moment, no one dares to breathe – no one but Dustin, who is grinning ear to ear at whatever it is only he can see.

“Dustin–” you hiss, swiping at him with a clawed hand. Your fingers brush the hem of his sleeve, but you don’t dare move to try and get a better grip on him, “Get away from that thing!”

He glances over to regard you in a way that is much too casual for your liking and, inexplicably, shakes his head.

“It’s fine,” He assures you, casually gesturing for you to approach, “Come see.”

No. Your most primal instincts tell you, Absolutely not.

Gate or not, something in the furthest reaches of your mind is telling you that thing is an Eater, whatever it is. If you get any closer it’s going to snap you up and swallow you whole.

But Dustin is still there… it hasn’t eaten him.

Every rational bone in your body is screaming at you to stay as far away from the hole in the ceiling as humanly possible. Still, the fact that Dustin remains unharmed causes the shutter of your mind to click over and awaken some patently unwise part of your lizard brain.

You’re suddenly dangerously curious to know what is on the other side.

You’ve seen enough horror movies to know it’s a patently bad idea, a surefire way to end up another tally on the kill count, but it’s not every day you happen upon a fleshy otherworldly portal growing in the ceiling of your ex-boyfriend’s home.

Dustin beckons again with a crook of his finger and you silently weigh your options. If nothing more, you can grab him and get him out of the way in the event that the thing is just playing possum… still, the urge is not entirely selfless.

You can’t help yourself. You have to look.

You edge forward, much to the alarm of the others who dig their fingers in tighter and silently will you not to move, all while doing absolutely nothing to stop you.

Together, you creep across the floor in millimeters, one tiny step after the other. It’s dark on the other side, but what little you can see is strangely familiar, if only in the gut-wrenching sense of the uncanny valley. You take another step, and another, features and fixtures coming into view, painting the scene of a room you know far too well.

A room you’re currently standing in.

Your brain creaks under the weight of what comes into focus as you move further and further, until finally, you come to find yourselves below the thing, staring up at the people looking down at you through the ceiling in a mind-bending mirror image.

For half a moment, you can feel your brain stall and begin to make crunchy sounds as it struggles to keep itself intact.

It’s the Munson trailer, or at least some bizarro version of it that has been abandoned for at least ten or fifteen years.

But how can that possibly be?

Everything you can make out in the darkness is covered in thick layers of dust and grime, including the group of people standing huddled in the singular pool of light cast into their world from yours.

“...O-kay…” Max begins drolly beside you, “...What?”

Out of everything you expected to find on the other side – which is not much considering you’d drawn a total blank in that department – you never considered you’d find the rest of your party on the other side.

That was perhaps stupid of you, but it feels like a fitting assessment, as you are starting to feel very stupid, staring up at the harrowed faces of Nancy, Steve, Eddie, and Robin all gawping back down at you … or maybe it’s up … you can’t say for certain which you think it is and it's starting to give you a headache.

Maddeningly, like they aren’t caught in a weird inverted interdimensional portal in the ceiling, everyone on the other side reacts with varying degrees of relief, laughing even.

Dustin is just as inappropriately pleased with the outcome of his actions, offering you a smile and gesturing to the missing half of your party in a way that is just a little more casual than you’re comfortable with, considering the circumstances.

Oddly, you find that you’re not entirely sure why you’re so surprised. Dustin had called it a gate, after all.

And wasn’t that the plan from the start? Meet them on the other side and bring them through? It only then occurs to you how little you’d truly comprehended your so-called plan.

He’s grinning at you, everyone is grinning and laughing and calling back and forth to one another, and suddenly you feel like you’re going to scream.

You swallow the intent and open your mouth to speak calmly, quietly… it doesn’t work.

“What the fuck.” You can’t stop yourself from saying – Dustin’s features drop. “Dustin?”

Part of you is well aware of just how shrill you’ve become, but it is summarily drowned out by the title scroll of your inner dialogue screaming unintelligibly at the Lovecraftian madness you’ve unceremoniously encountered. You’d always thought it was a lame cop-out, the hero who lost his mind at the sight of horrors he could not comprehend, things beyond description.

You can comprehend a lot, and it has always felt like nothing more than a cheap literary trope to avoid having to describe a monster. Yet suddenly here you are, desperately trying to hold the broken pieces of your brain together, failing to comprehend what you’re seeing right in front of you.

You’re freaking out. You’re totally freaking out.

Dustin seems to sense your dangerous proximity to madness, as he says your name, calmly and slowly, putting his hands out as he approaches, like you’re some kind of wild animal backed into a corner, and you would slug him if he were any closer.

“Don’t freak out, okay?”

“Don’t freak out?!” You mimic, willing yourself in vain to calm down. You gesture angrily to the gate, “Are you fucking kidding? Dustin–!”

He doesn’t let you finish.

“This is all completely normal — trust me,” He assures you, speaking quickly and still using that stupid tone of voice that you imagine is meant to be calming. “We’ve all been through this before, right guys? Steve? Nancy?”

Before anyone can vouch for the truth of that statement, Eddie interjects from somewhere above you.

“Uh, yeah… hate to break it to you, Bud, but nothing about this is normal…” He deadpans.

Your head snaps up to regard his frizzy-haired form, splattered and smeared in dark grey muck and grime, looking very much like he’s just crawled through some kind of interdimensional crawl space.

When your eyes meet, he presses his mouth into a tight line that you imagine is meant to be a smile and he waves awkwardly at you, like he isn’t quite sure what else to do.

For half a moment your heart seizes in something you can’t differentiate as fondness or panic as you try to decide whether or not the dark substance splattered across his hands is blood.

“Eddie–!” You start, but the words get caught in your throat.

“I know — I’ll fill you in later,” he huffs.

It does nothing to calm you. You can’t wait for later. You want to ask what’s happened, if he’s hurt, but your throat has slammed shut and try as you might you can’t make the sound come out, so you end up gaping stupidly up at him, working your jaw like a dying fish.

You can only imagine how goddamn foolish you must look, losing your shit in the middle of his living room. You’re supposed to be calm, level headed. Shit doesn’t phase you, you’re cool.

Dustin calls your name again, pulling your attention away from Eddie and back into the real world. Thankfully, you’re suddenly furious, and it’s more than grounding enough to hold your shit together.

“Somebody had better tell me what the hell is going on,” You start, “And I mean right. Fucking. Now.”

Dustin heaves a long suffering sigh, one that garners a wide-eyed, incredulous look from you. Then he’s shaking his head like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” He says, gesturing to the portal. “That’s the Upsidedown.”

It just about damn near breaks your brain. The Upsidedown is real, which means Jane Hopper (who you know for a fact isn’t actually related to the late Chief), or El, or whatever Mike’s weird girlfriend’s name is, really does have superpowers, and this is all actually happening.

Oh, Jesus…

Your vision swims and goes spotty and for half a moment you feel suddenly like the trailer has been set adrift at sea. The floor roils beneath your feet and you moan pitifully, doubling over to brace your hands on your knees.

“Uh oh…” someone says from above you. Maybe Robin, you think.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” You hum.

It causes a collective dissenting hum to pass through both the upright and inverted versions of the room. You’re vaguely aware of Eddie calling to you from somewhere above you.

“Oh, shit – okay, sit down a put your head between your knees!” He says.

“That never works,” Steve argues, and an instant commotion breaks out all around you.

It's overwhelming, though you suppose some part of you understands.

Nobody wants to see you blow chunks all over your sneakers, least of all you, but then again you didn’t ask to have the curtain pulled back like that with not even the courtesy of being told to pay no mind to the man you found there. Oz is on the horizon with Kansas swiftly slipping out from under you.

The Wizard isn’t real, but the Upsidedown is, which means everything else you think you know is probably a lie.

It’s totally cool and not scary at all, and you’re definitely not about to pass out. Nope, not at all…

Once again, a unanimous decision is made without your input – they found the gate, and now they’ve got to bring the party through. Someone moves you to the side as the room breaks into a flurry of motion, and you watch miserably from the couch as you wait for your bout of hysteria to pass.

Eddie’s mattress is dragged out into the living room, and rude comments are made about the state of his laundry. You wonder idly when he last changed his sheets and distract yourself by assuming it was probably the last time you changed them.

So, what… a year? Gross.

When prompted, you move aimlessly to the linen closet in the hall and begin retrieving bedsheets by the handful until the cupboard is bare. Then, you sit and help knot them together to form a makeshift rope.

It’s mindless work that you’re happy to do. As the elder Munson says: better to stay busy.

When the rope is finished and passed through the ceiling to the other side only to hang in suspended animation between the two worlds, you decide that you’ve had quite enough of the Upsidedown for today and slip wordlessly away from the group.

No one sees you go, and just like that you’re invisible again. Good, maybe if you’re lucky you can fade out of existence and escape the madness of everything that’s happened in the last half hour.

Down the hall and into the back bedroom, you pad across the threshold of Eddie’s door and sink down onto the exposed box spring, carefully tucking one foot beneath you and taking creature comfort in the familiarity of your surroundings as you do your best to center yourself.

Breathe in, breathe out.

You try to tune out everything from the trailer beyond by turning your mind to Eddie’s room. You look hard at everything, all his posters and knickknacks, dirty laundry and papers, and Sweetheart, his prized possession in its rightful place backed by the mirror.

Breathe in, breathe out.

The image reflected in its surface shows you movement as someone arrives in the doorway, and you ready yourself to be moved as Lucas or Max or someone else comes looking for yet another thing needed in the ongoing rescue of the others.

Breathe in, breathe out.

No one asks you to move, but a strong, calloused hand curling around your shoulder draws you back to yourself. You don’t need to look to know who it is. Even without his reflection in the mirror or the heavy metal press of his rings, you know Eddie’s touch like nothing else in this world.

“Sorry I’m late, Sweetheart.” He says softly, and you catch yourself wondering for half a moment whether he’s talking to you or the guitar.

You have your answer as, slowly, you turn to regard him and follow his movement as he sinks down to sit beside you on the bed.

You watch Eddie watching you, taking in his grimy features, the damp ends of his hair where it has not completely dried yet. There is something black and viscous spattered across his hands, and his nail beds are crusted with dried blood from where you know he’s been picking at them. Nervous habit.

It takes what feels like a very long moment for him to speak, and when he does, it almost feels like he has no idea what to say. You don’t blame him. What is there to say after all that madness?

“You doin’ okay?” Eddie asks gently, his voice barely a whisper as he turns shy eyes up at you.

Part of you hates the way he’s clearly treating you with kid gloves like he isn’t sure just how fragile you are right now and he’s leery of pushing you over the edge, but the rest of you is just so unbelievably happy he’s back.

You would throw your arms around his neck and squeeze him until he tapped out if you could make yourself move.

Still, with Eddie here, somehow all of this nonsense seems slightly more palatable if only because you know he’s got to be as lost in all of this as you are.

You offer him a lopsided shrug.

“Got your message,” You mumble, “Came running.”

He breathes an airy laugh out through his nose.

“You always do.”

You feel his hand slide down the length of your arm, never letting go as he pulls your hand into his lap and laces his fingers with yours.

You hadn’t even realized that he was still touching you, and now you’re stuck staring at the point of contact, your hand in his.

You still can’t tell what the dried muck spread all over his hands is, you’re not certain anymore that it’s blood, but you’re also not certain it isn’t — you almost don’t hear Eddie calling your name.

Slowly, you lift your eyes to meet his and find him looking at you expectantly.

You hadn’t heard what he’d said.

“Are you okay?” He asks again when you force yourself to focus on him, brows knitting tightly over his eyes.

You pull your shoulders up to your ears and briefly debate whether you ought to tell him the truth.

No, you absolutely are the furthest thing from okay.

Everything you know is a lie and you’re pretty sure nothing is ever going to go back to being normal. Somehow you can’t manage it, as sitting there, looking at him, suddenly all you can feel is relief. Suddenly square one doesn’t seem so bad.

Slowly, you feel the corners of your lips begin to creep up. You reach across to brush his hair back from his forehead, tracing the dirty planes of his face before coming down to cup his jaw. He catches your hand and holds it there, turning in to press a chaste kiss to your palm.

You smile and nod.

“I’m okay,” You tell him, and start down the path to fooling yourself into believing it.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Upsidedown was bad, but it wasn’t the worst thing Eddie has witnessed all day, because they’d all taken their turns climbing the rope to slip back into the real world and left it and all its hive-mind bullshit behind.

Watching Nancy slip into the catatonia of Vecna’s curse and tearing his room apart in a panic looking for the elusive “music” everyone was suddenly crying out for was an excursion in brief but blinding terror. Somehow – he doesn’t know how – she’d snapped out of it, rendering it, not the worst thing that has happened all day.

Boosting his shitty neighbor’s Winnebago had been almost fun until Eddie realized that, inexplicably, he’d picked what was perhaps the worst getaway car in the history of mankind.

He’d picked it because it was a home as much as it was a vehicle, something they could all take a moment to breathe in, and because he knew how angry it would make the particular couple who owned the thing. He didn’t give a shit, he wanted a nap and a shower and to get as far away from the place that was supposed to be his home as fast as humanly possible.

Harrington was driving like a bat out of hell, and he was almost proud of him until noticed everyone getting thrown around, desperately trying to cling to any surface they could find. Eddie realized his mistake with a sickening start.

Seatbelts.

There were no goddamn seatbelts in the RV.

Visions of car accidents and open-casket funerals nearly sent him over the edge and Eddie seized you by the back of your pants.

He pulled you firmly into place to sit in his lap where he could hold you in a constricting embrace and protect you from whatever kind of vehicular disaster they were surely headed for, all the while barking orders at everyone to sit the fuck down and hold on to something.

Despite the way it triggered violently sepia-toned memories of the last time he ever saw his mother alive, it still wasn’t the worst thing he’d witnessed all day.

No, all of that he could manage, compartmentalize alongside all the other crazy shit he was electing not to think about… but The War Zone? That was a beast in its own category.

They’d rolled in expecting to find the parking lot empty like it has been every other time Eddie made the jaunt out to the Army Surplus store, for one reason or another, and yet they found the place teeming with life.

Everyone and their mother, it seemed, everyone Eddie has known his whole life, turned out to arm themselves to the teeth like they thought they were the cast of Red Dawn and the Russians were at the gate.

If he didn’t know better he would have thought the good people of Hawkins were readying themselves for war.

But it wasn’t the threat of war that had whipped them into a frothy bloodlust, only the lingering threat of a Munson among them. They were getting ready to hunt their newest boogeyman, root him out and string him up for all the world to see.

A warning to anyone who dared to be different in any capacity.

They’d done the same with his father once upon a time, not that the bastard didn’t deserve it, but now they were getting ready to hunt him, and that was so much worse…

Worse than the Upsidedown or the near miss with Nancy and Vecna, was the knowledge that this town hated him bad enough to arm themselves with bear traps and grenades.

It left Eddie feeling like he’d been wrenched out of himself and discarded, leaving nothing more than an empty shell devoid of any higher function than the primal urge to run.

Every single person in this god-forsaken, nice little midwestern town, this backwater hell wants him dead… he’s never going to get out of Hawkins.

He’ll die first.

The sobering realization of the violence his neighbors are capable of weighs heavy like a cinder block tied to his ankle dragging him deeper and deeper into the darkness.

He can hardly breathe for the pressure it puts on him, and by the time they reach the field, Eddie is just about ready to spin out.

The door swings open and he’s out of the RV before the wheels have even stopped rolling, gravel crunching underfoot and grass swaying as he stalks out into the field at a pace. He doesn’t know where he’s going, he just needs space, distance — quiet.

Behind him, he’s vaguely aware of hearing Dustin calling after him, followed very quickly by your hushed,

“Let him go, Dustin …”

Thank God for that, he doesn’t think he can stand any semblance of human interaction right now. He can’t grin and bear it and pretend he’s okay, not when he’s ready to fly apart at the seams.

Eddie walks until he can’t hear the idle chatter of the group anymore, feeling something akin to a balloon swelling in his chest. He doesn’t know what will happen if it bursts.

He can’t breathe.

He doesn’t understand what he did to make those good people hate him so much. He’s never understood it, and suddenly he feels like he’s eleven years old again, walking down the interstate, wiping blood and tears on the sleeve of his suit jacket because nobody loves him, nobody is on his side and he wants to scream, hurl himself to the ground and rant and rail and cry about how unfair his stupid life is until he’s empty.

He doesn’t do any of that, though, he just stops and breathes deep the clean air.

It’s heavy with the smell of rain, wildflowers, and water and Eddie sinks to his knees and prays for the ground to open up and swallow him. Let him go back to the Earth, let him cease to exist.

After all, that’s what everybody wants, right? To wipe away any trace of him having ever existed?

How cruel it was that his parents didn’t smother him in the crib, they could have saved everyone an awful lot of grief.

Why else was he born if not to suffer, to feel all the hurt, and misery, and pain in the world? They ought to have ended his suffering before it even began.

He wipes moodily at the breaking damn of his tears, streaking uncontrollably down his face, cutting rivets through the dirt caked into his skin, and he hates, hates, hates…

It’s not fair — it’s just not fucking fair.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed before the gentle crunch of approaching footsteps reach him, growing gradually louder, and louder.

After a moment Eddie feels a hand creep up between his shoulder blades and rest momentarily in the space there. He knows it’s you without even looking up from where he’s ripping up fistfuls of grass like a petulant child.

Who else would be it? Who else is brave enough to face the monster?

You slowly come to circle around and sink down quietly to sit in the grass in front of him. You’re close enough that your knees are nearly touching, and the proximity is not enough.

Eddie wishes you would reach for him, wrap him up and hold him in your arms and tell him it’s going to be okay until he believes it.

He wishes you would love him again like you used to.

He wishes it were that easy.

He doesn’t ask for it, because he doesn’t deserve it, and you don’t speak, you just watch and wait.

Eddie can’t help but feel so slightly ashamed, of what he doesn’t rightly know – maybe for storming off like he did, maybe for this whole scenario, but he suddenly can’t meet your gaze and the idle wishing continues.

He wishes none of this had happened and he wishes more than anything that he’d swallowed his pride and just gone to your stupid graduation ceremony.

Maybe if he had you’d be a hundred miles away now, living together somewhere in a tiny little apartment, struggling to pay your bills, sharing every meal and every night and morning, living your lives blissfully removed from Hawkins and Chrissy Cunningham and Vecna and everything else that has come together to unceremoniously ruin Eddie’s life in the span of a week.

He sniffs, wipes the back of his hand across his nose, and clears his throat to try and banish the bullshit emotion welling up inside of him.

He can’t place it: Fear? Anger? Frustration? Exhaustion? He doesn’t know what the feeling is, he only knows it’s big enough that if he’s not careful it’s going to swallow him whole.

He thinks if he could trace it, he would find that it manifested the moment he walked into his living room and found Chrissy frozen to the spot. Though maybe sooner, maybe it started the afternoon he’d spent shamelessly flirting with her at the picnic table behind the school or the moment he tried to drink himself into oblivion last summer.

Maybe it started when he stood there and watched as you walked out of his life.

He shouldn’t have let you go, and he’s sick with the notion.

You’re still watching him, waiting for him to speak.

As always, Eddie is happy to indulge you – he furiously scrubs his hands over his face to try and banish any residual wetness from the tears that have, thankfully, since stopped.

“Everybody in this goddamn town wants me dead.” he croaks – his voice is thick and creaky from disuse.

You don’t miss a beat.

“And everybody in this goddamn town is going to have to go through me to get to you.”

In spite of himself, Eddie can’t help the bitter snort of laughter that bubbles up in him.

After a moment, you nudge him with your knee.

“Hey, I promised Wayne I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” you say, “and I’m not about to start breaking my promises … especially to Wayne.”

Eddie hums thoughtfully, well aware of the consequences of such an unforgivable action. There’s not much in this world that is as terrible as getting caught under Wayne Munson’s disappointed gaze.

It makes him think of all the ways he’s let his uncle down in the last year, all the deeply tired sighs and sad eyes he’s had to endure because of the bad decisions Eddie can’t seem to stop making.

“Do you wanna hear something crazy?” He hums, quickly changing the subject for the sake of his own self-preservation - he doesn’t need to relive all the guilt he’s built up in disappointing his uncle on top of everything else presently weighing on him.

You nod.

“Always.”

“So… on the other side–” He gives you a knowing look, because he’s not about to start calling it the Upsidedown like it’s a normal place with a normal name.

Thankfully your brows jump up toward your hairline and you roll your eyes - you are, in fact, picking up what he’s putting down. Good.

Eddie continues.

“They’ve got these bats, right? But, not like normal ones—” He pauses a moment to try and find a way to properly explain the most immediate threat waiting for you just below the surface, “Remember in Temple of Doom, all those establishing shots—?”

Your eyes flash with clarity and in an instant you’re nodding, finishing the thought for him.

“Giant vampire bats.” You say, then pause like you’ve only just realized what it was you said, “Oh, great. So nothing too terrible…”

The sarcasm in your tone is thick enough to cut with a knife.

Eddie shrugs.

“I mean they damn near pulled Steve’s head off last time, but yeah, no big deal…”

You pull a face.

“...I was wondering what happened there.”

You gesture to your throat in emphasis – it had been hard to miss the dark bruises wringing Steve’s neck, but between what happened with Nancy, stealing the RV, and navigating the parking lot of the army surplus outlet, there had been almost no time to explain any of it.

"Too bad," you continue, "It might have done something to reign that ego in..."

“He’s not so bad…”

Eddie lets the words hang between you a moment before finally turning his eyes up to watch for your reaction.

Your expression is, for the moment, an unreadable thing if not tinged with the slightest hint of disbelief, so he continues.

“Steve apologized to me,” He clarifies, “For being an asshole back at school.”

It takes you a moment to react, but when you do, your brows come together in a pinched mask of strident disbelief.

“Bullshit.”

It’s about as much as he’d thought you would say. Eddie lays a palm flat across his chest and raises the other, pantomiming the swearing of an oath.

“Hand to God, he pulled me aside for a gen-u-ine heart-to-heart... I guess facing your mortality like that tends to put things into perspective … not that I would know, I’ve never really been the 'learning lessons' type…”

You laugh, and it’s almost enough to banish all the bad feelings weighing heavy on Eddie’s heart. He bites the inside of his cheek to try and stifle the smile the sound of your laughter brings to the surface.

“That must have been awkward.” You giggle.

“Yeah, it was, but it was also really … I don’t know, it was nice.” Eddie shrugs, “You know, people aren’t exactly striving for accountability when it comes to the way they treat the town freak.” And then, “They’d rather just come after me with torches and pitchforks.”

The sentiment wipes the smile right off your face, and it might have sent a pang of regret lancing through Eddie’s midsection if it wasn’t so patently true.

It’s not like you can deny it, you saw the multitude of masses at The War Zone as clearly as he did. Good simple folk whipped into a tizzy over rumors, practically frothing at the mouth with a sudden and violent need for blood.

His blood.

Eddie watches the gears in your head turn as you work something over, trying to decide what to say. Only there is nothing to be said, so you make a hollow sound in the back of your throat and you let your gaze drift past him to fix wistfully on the scene beyond.

If he turned, he would see their party spread out, preparing themselves for the insurmountable task ahead, crafting weapons and armor and all the other fixings of battle.

They’ve got a plan to try and stop Vecna, to save Max from the curse, and to clear his name. It’s a very bad plan, in his opinion, an honest-to-God suicide mission, but he supposes if he’s going to die, he might as well do it on his own terms rather than waiting around for the angry mob to descend.

It doesn’t scare him any less.

Despite his best efforts, his voice is trembling as he speaks.

“... I can’t see the end of this…”

You turn your attention back to him, but you don’t answer right away. You just stare at him like you’re trying to commit his features to memory, almost like you’re worried something is going to happen and you’re never going to see him again.

Probably because you know how bad the plan to stop Vecna is and you’re all going to die the second you set foot back in the Upsidedown.

“The end of what, Eds?” You finally hum.

“This.” He says, gesturing vaguely to the air, “The saga of all this … bullshit.”

“What do you mean?”

For some reason, the wide-eyed innocence of your tone sets his teeth on edge.

“I mean I’m scared, Sweetheart.” He presses, “I don’t know how I’m gonna – how any of us are gonna survive this.”

“...Oh.” You say quietly, and then like you have no idea what to say but you’re desperate to say something to try and provide some sort of comfort to him, “You know, it’s okay to be scared–”

He can’t help but scoff bitterly.

“Don’t patronize me, okay–” He bites the words off before he can finish the thought.

It would be so easy to get mean because you’re not the one everyone is gunning for, nobody wants to see your head on a pike, but none of that is your fault.

There’s no sense in biting your head off over something neither of you has any power over.

Eddie sighs and tips his head forward before starting again.

“All the shit that’s happened?” He says, “It’s like it doesn’t even phase you.”

You roll your eyes and scoff like it’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard.

“Oh, Eddie, come on. You think I’m not scared? I am barely holding it together,”

He shakes his head.

“Well, you’re real damn good at hiding it because you could’ve fooled me.”

“Only because I’ve had years of practice.” You huff. “Come on, what’s this really about?”

He hesitates because it feels stupid to admit what he’s thinking, but now that he’s started, he knows you’re not about to just let him drop the subject.

Anyway, it’s like you said, he’s justified in being scared. It’s not like you’re about to turn around and judge him for it, at least he hopes.

He takes a deep, steadying breath to try and center himself before explaining himself.

“I’m not a hero, you know? I run at the first sign of danger, and I didn’t know that about myself until this week.” Eddie sniffs, “I spent all this time thinking I was pretty brave… turns out I’m a fucking coward.”

“You are brave.” You insist, “Eddie, you’re the bravest person I know.”

It hits him like a bolt to the chest and suddenly there’s a knot in his throat, threatening to strangle him with emotion.

Eddie lifts his hand to press the heel of his palm into his eye until it bursts with colors and stars, and he sniffles pitifully, willing himself not to get stupid and teary-eyed again.

He’s just feeling sorry for himself, and it’s not a good look.

“No, I’m not, But you? You’re a goddamn superhero, you know that? I don’t know how I got so lucky that you’re always riding in to save my ass, but… well, look, I think we both know I’m not the guy who lives to see the end of this movie.”

“This isn’t a movie.” You press.

“No, I know that it’s just… I guess what I’m trying to say is … this is so fucked on so many levels, and you’re just… I mean you’re amazing. I’d be dead without you,”

Complimenting you is his default setting, he cannot help but do it, especially when it comes as a substitute for any kind of a straight answer, and you know this better than anyone.

You pull a face and he’s quick to continue before you can argue the point.

“You know it’s true." Eddie insists, "If it weren’t for you, I’d probably still be hiding under a tarp at Rick’s place… or worse..”

You have to know what he means, strung up by Jason Carver and his lackeys and everyone else in this town desperately gearing up for the hunt and their own brand of Good American Justice. You’d never let that happen. You’d burn Hawkins to the ground before you let anyone harm him… he still believes that, in spite of all his faculties telling him otherwise.

Eddie suddenly feels the weight of the situation it bearing down on him like it means to crush him, and it’s too much. He heaves out a shuddering breath and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands.

Immediately, he feels your reassuring touch, rubbing up and down the length of his calf.

“Hey, listen to me. I know you’re scared – I’m scared too– but we’re gonna figure this out–”

He drops his hands to hold yours in place at his knees and nods emphatically, quick to assure you that he’s okay and definitely not about to go to pieces.

“I know,” He assures you, “I know, that’s not what I’m trying to say. There actually is a greater point to this pity party, I swear, I just – Jesus – I just have to find it again...”

Eddie is painfully aware of how he has begun to ramble. He knows what he wants to say, but suddenly he can’t find the words.

He can almost hear Steve chastizing him for putting his foot in his mouth so spectacularly, urging him to just tell her how you feel.

The advice seemed so heartfelt and eloquent at the time, but under the heat of your gaze, Eddie’s intentions have slipped from his grasp.

He feels like he’s fourteen years old again and terrified of talking to pretty girls – shades of the way he used to feel around you before he knew you.

You’re looking at him with so much patience and so much adoration, the way you did when he was a shy and stammering mess, before you’d finished dancing around each other in those first few tentative months.

It ties his tongue into knots and makes his throat feel like it’s closing up, and he has to clear his throat to try and keep his voice steady.

It doesn’t work.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is…” He trails off, heaves a defeated sigh, and shakes his head for how completely stupid he is sure he must sound, “...is that I don’t know what I’m trying to say… I’m just feeling sorry for myself…”

“Liar.” You say gently.

Eddie can’t help the airy chuckle that rises in him, he must not be as good a liar as he thinks he is, because you always manage to see through his bullshit.

A sticky silence blooms between the two of you, and after a long moment of nothing but birdsong and the grass moving in the breeze, you nudge his knee with yours again, drawing his attention.

“Spit it out, Munson.” You prompt, giving him a curt nod.

He would if he knew how.

He wants to tell you he loves you and that he’s sorry, but he’s said it so many times lately it’s started to lose all meaning, and with such diminishing returns he’s afraid to push it past the point of no return.

Eddie hesitates, suddenly worried about overstepping his bounds, but you’re looking at him and batting those pretty eyes so expectantly that he has to say something.

“Whatever happens,” He begins slowly, “I want you to know I’m just so, so glad you came looking for me … even if you only did it for Wayne,”

You’re quiet for what feels like a very long time, long enough that Eddie starts to get nervous that he said the wrong thing.

You push up then, standing and brushing the dirt from your jeans before reaching down for his hand.

He gives it to you so quickly your palms clap together in a sound that rings out loudly across the field.

Eddie lets you pull him to his feet and lets you help brush off the dirt and grass from his jeans. It’s almost intimate, the proximity, the gentle touching.

If he wanted to, he could fool himself and read further into it than he has any right to do, but then he turns and catches you standing there, watching him with a subtle smile spread across your face.

“What?” He asks.

You shake your head.

“Nothing,” You say, “Just enjoying the show.”

It causes the moth in his stomach to kick up a ruckus, and he can’t help but stand a little stunned as you cross your arms over your chest and turn on your heel, starting back across the field toward the camper.

He knows he’s blushing.

He’s got to be, and he feels extremely stupid about it, watching you go, trying not to get too caught up in how he’s suddenly noticed the way your jeans hug your backside – are those the same jeans you were wearing before?

Were they always that tight?

Almost like you’d read his mind, you stop short after only a few paces and twist back around to face him.

“I didn’t do it for Wayne, you know…” You call, matter of factly, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

It hits Eddie like a fist to the gut, and he does everything in his power not to hope… and yet… he nearly stumbles over his own feet in the rush to close the gap between you, the trek made all the more difficult by the nervous habit of wiping his palms down over the front of his jeans.

“You didn’t?” Eddie stammers, half breathless from the sudden burst of exertion and the hint of possibility hanging heavy in the air.

You pull your shoulders up to your ears and tilt coquettishly forward, leaning into his space just as he makes those last few steps to you.

“I did it for you, Dummy.” You whisper.

Oh shit, oh shit oh shit!

His tongue feels fat in his mouth and Eddie has to swallow hard against the way his throat suddenly feels dry.

He could kiss you so easily right now, all he has to do is lean forward.

He’s not sure you’d thank him for it, he has no idea where you stand these days, but, like always, he can’t help but give in to his impulses.

Just as Eddie begins to lean in to meet you, you turn again and start back in the direction of the others once more

“And I did it for me…” You say, shrugging, “Mostly I did it for me.”

It’s enough to drive Eddie just a little bit crazy, and suddenly his heart is hammering in his chest. He shouldn’t hope for anything, because it’s the hope that kills you, so they say.

“Why?” He asks, lengthening his stride in order to fall into step with you.

In the distance, Dustin stands crouched over a pair of galvanized trashcan lids, hammering wicked-looking carpenter nails through their surface area, the sound rings out across the field like the ticking of a clock, counting the seconds as Eddie waits for you to answer.

You walk along, watching your feet as you go, and he thinks he can see the faintest hint of a smile quirking up the corners of your mouth.

When you glance up at him from the edge of your vision, he can’t stop himself from grinning at you, not even if his life depended on it.

You don’t answer, you just smile and keep walking.

He knows why, at least he hopes he does.

For half a moment he’s overwhelmed with the notion, with the white heat of your gaze. It’s too much, and he has to tear his eyes away for the sake of his own self-preservation… and to keep from stepping into a gopher hole and breaking an ankle.

Eddie glances bashfully down at his sneakers and reaches up to scratch at the stubble he knows must be shadowing his jawline – it’s been days since he showered and he’s suddenly painfully aware of it.

You giggle beside him in a way that feels secretive, conspiratorial even, like it’s a secret shared between you. He can’t help but smile.

It has Eddie suddenly thinking back to the earliest days of your relationship. To nights laying on your bedroom floor, staring up at the sea of glow-in-the-dark stars, tripping the light fantastic with the dulcet tones of Knights in White Satin playing a soft soundtrack to the cosmos alit in your eyes.

Your parents aren’t home, but when are they ever?

He can picture your lips, rosy and swollen for the soft languid kisses you’ve been trading for the better part of two hours. Your clothes and hair are in a state, pulled hopelessly out of shape where he’s been pawing at you to gain access to the most tender parts he craved, like some sort of depraved creature, starved for the taste of sweetest flesh.

He’s so incandescently happy he imagines he could sink into the floor, become a ghost and spend the rest of his days haunting these walls if only to always be near you.

He heaves a contented sigh into your mouth as you push forward to knock foreheads with him, ever so tenderly.

Another kiss, just one more… The faintest whisper of your lips graze his, the pads of your fingers trace the lines of his face, your body is pressed into perfect alignment with his, and he’s so caught in the anticipation of you, so drunk on the heady film of proximity that he almost misses it.

He feels those three words more than he hears them, like three bolts to the chest that hit home and sink beneath the surface to permanently embed themselves in the tender flesh of his heart.

The first time you’d ever told him you loved him is a shining jewel in the collection of treasured memories that live in the secret spot behind his lungs, and he’s been chasing that high for days.

“Yeah… well…” He mumbles, the memory breathing a little courage into him, enough daring to steal a glance back up at you where he is once again overwhelmed by the way you’re still gazing at him — echoes of the same way you’d looked at him that night if he was being really foolish.

But he was always a fool for you.

“Well?” You prompt.

“Well… maybe I need to hear you say it.”

You stop short and level Eddie with a sly look when he comes to stand beside you.

“Do you?” You ask, turning your gaze up at him.

The moth flutters against its bars and Eddie has to clear his throat to keep his voice steady.

“Yeah…” He says, nodding, “Yeah, I think I do.”

The assault on his stomach turns violent when your face splits into a wide, playful grin then. You bite your lip in a failed attempt to stifle it and rock back on your heels.

Eddie feels a nostalgic warmth flood his chest cavity, swirling like the tide against his ribs – he knows that mischievous look very well, and he realizes with a start just how long it’s been since he’s seen it grace your features.

Too long.

If he’d had his wits about him, he might have known what was about to happen next. It would have given him time to reach out and grab you, hold you to the spot.

“You’ll have to catch me first,” you purr.

It takes him a moment too long to feed the sentence through the gears in his mind, and by the time Eddie realizes what’s happening, you’ve already turned tail and bolted across the field.

“Hey–!” He shouts after you, the bright sound of your laughter ringing across the grass as you angle yourself toward Dustin.

He chases you, and suddenly it’s just like old times, running rampant circles around each other, playing, shouting, and laughing, only this time with the added bonus of Dustin being thrown into the mix.

Once he gets over the initial shock of you using him as a human shield, shoving him between you and Eddie, he’s more than happy to join in your game.

Were anyone to look over, they would surely be disgusted by the cloyingly saccharine display – the three of you wrestling in the grass like it’s just another spring afternoon and nothing could possibly be amiss in the world.

#cruel summer fic #eddie munson #stranger things fic #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #joseph quinn eddie munson

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